Long before the Revolution there was much dissatisfaction in the colonies. Many of the governors sent over were tyrannical and dishonest. The Americans did not like the transportation of criminals, nor the action of the British government in annulling the laws made to keep out slaves. They were also much annoyed by English laws, which prevented them from sending away woolen goods, hats, and iron-wares of their own make, from one colony to another. Most of all, they disliked the "navigation laws," the object of which was to compel them to do most of their trading with England.

The enforcement of these unpopular laws was in the hands of custom-house officers. The custom-house officers in Boston, in 1761, asked the courts for "writs of assistance," which would give them the right to search any house, at any time, for the purpose of finding smuggled goods. This produced a great excitement, and made the navigation laws still more unpopular. The trial which took place about these writs was a kind of beginning of the quarrel which brought on the Revolution fourteen years afterward.

But England and the colonies, while always carrying on a family quarrel, had little thought of separating. Separation would probably have come when the colonies grew too large to be dependent, but this might at least have been postponed for two or three generations if the men who ruled England had not tried to tax the American colonies. Parliament passed, in 1765, what was known as "The Stamp Act." This law required that all bills, notes, leases, and many other such documents used in the colonies, should be written on stamped paper, which should be sold by officers at such prices as should bring a revenue to the English government. All newspapers were required to be printed on stamped paper.

The American people quickly saw that, if the British Parliament could pass such an act, they could tax America in any other way. The cry was raised in all the colonies, "No taxation without representation!" Patrick Henry, a brilliant speaker, took the lead in the agitation in Virginia, and James Otis, an eloquent Boston lawyer, was the principal orator in Massachusetts. The rivalries and jealousies between the various colonies died out in the new patriotic feeling, and the excitement ran like a flame of fire from New Hampshire to Georgia. There was everywhere a call for union among the colonies. A congress of delegates from nine of the colonies met in New York in October, 1765. It is known as "The Stamp-Act Congress." But the people were too much excited to stop at orderly measures. In colony after colony violent mobs compelled the stamp-officers to resign. In some places the people pulled down or rifled the houses of British officials. Not one man in all the colonies dared to sell a piece of stamped paper.

Though America had almost no manufacturers, the merchants pledged themselves to import no English goods until the Stamp Act was repealed. As black goods came from England, the people resolved to wear no black at funerals, and they began to dress in homespun. They resolved, also, to eat no more mutton, in order to increase the home production of wool. English merchants, whose trade was hurt by these measures, now joined in the clamor for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and it was repealed in 1766, to the great joy of the colonies.

But Parliament passed another bill at the same time, asserting its right to tax the colonies. New ways of raising a revenue in America, without the consent of the people, were tried. Troops were quartered in the colonies, and the people were required to pay the expense. This the colonies refused to do. In 1770, a collision took place between the British troops occupying Boston and some colonists. In this collision, Britsh troops attempting to quell a riot killed five colonists. This was called "The Boston Massacre." It excited deep feeling in all the colonies, and Samuel Adams, the leader of the Boston town-meeting, compelled the governor to withdraw the troops from the city.

The tax was at length taken off from nearly everything except tea. By releasing a part of the English duty on tea sent to America, the government arranged it so that the Americans, after paying a tax in America, would have their tea cheaper than before. The Americans were not contending for a little money, but for a principle, and they refused to receive the tea. They began to drink tea made of sassafras-roots, sage, raspberry-leaves, yaupon, and other American plants. The English government sent over consignments of tea to the principal ports. At Boston a company of fifty men, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded the ships and emptied three hundred and forty-two chests of tea into the sea. This is known as "The Boston Tea Party." In New York the people emptied a private consignment of tea into the water, and the ships which were sent by the government they compelled to go back to England. Philadelphia also sent the tea-ships home again. In Charleston the tea was landed, but purposely stored in damp cellars, where it rotted; and at Annapolis, a ship that had paid the duty on a private consignment of tea was burned in the harbor.

The English Parliament punished Boston by closing its port until the tea thrown overboard should be paid for. This act produced a great deal of distress in Boston, by ruining its business and throwing its working people out of employment. But it excited the sympathy of the other colonies, who sent aid to its people and who resolved to support it. A committee in New York immediately suggested that Massachusetts should call a congress, and thus the colonies were finally brought into a union against the mother-country.



PATRICK HENRY

Patrick Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1736. He was chiefly educated in a school taught by his father. He read law and began the practice of his profession. In 1763 he was engaged to plead in defense of the people against a suit of the parish clergy. It was known as "The Parsons' Cause." Before a court, in which his own father was the presiding magistrate, he pleaded the case of the people with such extraordinary eloquence and vehemence that the clergymen rose and left the room, and Henry's father wept tears of triumph, while the people carried the young lawyer about on their shoulders. Elected to the Virginia Legislature, he immediately took the lead against the Stamp Act and became famous. It was in his speech on the Stamp Act that he uttered the famous words, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—" As Henry reached this point his opponents cried "Treason! treason!" But the speaker finished by saying, "may profit by their example," and added, "if that be treason, make the most of it!" When pleading for the organization of the Virginia militia, before the Revolutionary War had begun, he closed with these memorable words: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it. Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" He was several times governor of Virginia. He died in 1799.



JAMES OTIS

James Otis was born at what is now West Barnstable, on Cape Cod, in 1725. After studying in his native town, he went to Harvard College, where he graduated when he was eighteen years old. But, wishing to lay a good foundation, he spent a year and a half more in general studies before he entered on the study of the law. He practiced at first in Plymouth and afterward in Boston. He rose to the highest rank in his profession. He was an honorable man, and would never take unfair advantages of an opponent. When the custom-house officers applied for "writs of assistance," which would enable them to search any house at any time, it became the duty of Otis, as advocate-general, to argue in favor of the writs. But he gave up this lucrative office and took the side of liberty. He made a great speech, five hours long, against the writs, and this speech is considered by some the starting-point of the Revolution. It was in this speech that he first raised the popular cry against "taxation without representation," which was the watchword of the Revolution. In the great struggle over the Stamp Act, and in the debates that followed, to 1769, he was the brilliant leader. When the bitterness of the controversy with England was at its height, he became involved in an affray with several officers of the customs, and was seriously injured. Soon after this his mind, wearied by the exciting controversies in which he was engaged, became gradually deranged, and he retired from public affairs. In 1783 he was killed by a stroke of lightning.